The questions, discussion topics, and interview that follow are intended to enhance your group's experience of reading Bernard Lefkowitz's Our Guys. We hope they will provide you with a number of interesting angles from which to approach this harrowing and deeply revealing story of the violent undercurrents that exist within a "perfect" American suburb.

Glen Ridge, New Jersey: In March 1989, thirteen teenage boys lured a retarded girl into a basement where four of them gang-raped her while several others looked on. The boys were the most popular athletes in high school. And although rumors of the rape began quickly circulating through the town, it was weeks before anyone reported it to the police and years before the boys finally went to trial.

Glen Ridge is an affluent, idyllic suburb, the kind of town that exemplifies the American Dream. What went wrong in Paradise? Why did the town's supposedly responsible adults--including teachers, coaches, parents, and law-enforcement officers--turn a blind eye to the increasingly violent and aberrant behavior of Glen Ridge's golden boys? In Our Guys, noted author and journalist Bernard Lefkowitz draws on hundreds of interviews with the case's key players and observers to create a deeply disturbing portrait of an all-American town and the value system that shapes its children's characters. The expertly told story of the rape and the subsequent trial makes a compelling national drama of conscience and morality, charged with a significance that reaches far beyond one town and its criminal justice system. A New York Times Notable Book of the Year, a Publishers WeeklyBest Book of the Year, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist, and an Edgar Award Finalist, Our Guys raises vital questions about our values, our law, and our moral standards.